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The Thing On The Hearth
by
“The print,” he continued, “was the first confirmation of evidence, but it was not the first indicatory sign. I doubt if the Master himself noticed the thing at the beginning. The seductions of this disaster could not have come quickly; and besides that, Excellency, the agencies behind the material world get a footing in it only with continuous pressure. Do not receive a wrong impression, Excellency; to the eye a thing will suddenly appear, but the invisible pressure will have been for some time behind that materialization.”
He paused.
“The Master was sunk in his labor, and while that enveloped him, the first advances of the lure would have gone by unnoticed – and the tension of the pressure. But the day was at hand when the Master was receptive. He had got his work completed; the formula, penciled out, were on his table. I knew by the relaxation. Of all periods this is the one most dangerous to the human spirit.”
He sat silent for a moment, his big fingers moving on the arms of the chair.
“I knew,” he added. Then he went on: “But it was the one thing against which I could not protect him. The test was to be permitted.”
He made a vague gesture.
“The Master was indicated – but the peril antecedent to his elevation remained . . . . It was to be permitted, and at its leisure and in its choice of time.”
He turned sharply toward me, the folds of his face unsteady.
“Excellency!” he cried. “I would have saved the Master, I would have saved him with my soul’s damnation, but it was not permitted. On that first night in the Italian’s tent I said all I could.”
His voice went into a higher note.
“Twice, for the Master, I have been checked and reduced in merit. For that bias I was myself encircled. I was in an agony of spirit when I knew that the thing was beginning to advance, but my very will to aid was at the time environed.”
His voice descended.
He sat motionless, as though the whole bulk of him were devitalized, and maintained its outline only by the inclosing frame of the chair.
“It began, Excellency, on an August night. There is a chill in these mountains at sunset. I had put wood into the fireplace, and lighted it, and was about the house. The Master, as I have said, had worked out his formulae. He was at leisure. I could not see him, for the door was closed, but the odor of his cigar escaped from the room. It was very silent. I was placing the Master’s bed-candle on the table in the hall, when I heard his voice. . . . You have read it, Excellency, as the scriveners wrote it down before the judge.”
He paused.
“It was an exclamation of surprise, of astonishment. Then I heard the Master get up softly and go over to the fireplace. . . Presently he returned. He got a new cigar, Excellency, clipped it and lighted it. I could hear the blade of the knife on the fiber of the tobacco, and of course, clearly the rasp of the match. A moment later I knew that he was in the chair again. The odor of ignited tobacco returned. It was some time before there was another sound in the room; then suddenly I heard the Master swear. His voice was sharp and astonished. This time, Excellency, he got up swiftly and crossed the room to the fireplace. . . I could hear him distinctly. There was the sound of one tapping on metal, thumping it, as with the fingers.”
He stopped again, for a brief moment, as in reflection.
“It was then that the Master unlocked the door and asked for the liquor.” He indicated the court record in my pocket. “I brought it, a goblet of brandy, with some carbonated water. He drank it all without putting down the glass . . . . His face was strange, Excellency . . . . Then he looked at me.